by Rick Reed
“Mr. Crispino,” Ahmad said, and touched his shoulder. “Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes, please?”
Crispino moaned slightly, said, “Cubby.” His eyes opened and came to rest on Jack. “Am I under arrest?”
Chapter 32
Whether if for medical reasons or if he was just being nosy, Dr. Ahmad insisted on staying in the room while they talked to Crispino.
“Do you know where you are, Mr. Crispino?” Ahmad asked.
“In a hospital,” Crispino said. “I hope.” He tried to smile but grimaced in pain instead.
“Do you know who I am?” Ahmad persisted.
“Never seen you before.”
“Do you…”
Crispino said, “I know I’m getting tired of these questions. Why don’t you tell me where I am and how I got here.”
Jack took out his notebook and laid it on the foot of the bed. “He’s his normal self,” Jack said to Dr. Ahmad. “You don’t want to answer my questions, Uncle Marty?”
“I can save you some time, Detective Murphy. I don’t have a clue who hit me.”
“I don’t care who hit you,” Jack lied, and this time Marty managed a tiny smile. “I want to know about the murder of Missy Schwindel.”
Crispino’s eyes gave him away, but he said, “Can I get something for the pain, Doc?” He shut his eyes tightly. Jack imagined Crispino’s entire body must feel like it was being stuck with pins and needles as the nerves came back to life.
“Okay, that’s it guys,” Dr. Ahmad said. “You can come back when he’s rested.” He motioned toward the unit doors and the men headed that way. Deputy Findlay stayed outside the door and Ahmad walked Jack and Liddell to the elevators. “He’s regained consciousness and he recognized you Detective Murphy. Both good signs.”
“I shot someone for him,” Jack said, and Dr. Ahmad’s eyes widened. Jack explained, “The guy I shot had killed his nephew and…never mind.”
Dr. Ahmad said, “He may have memory loss. Headaches. Chronic pain. Blurred vision. Emotional disturbance…”
“I had a TBI a couple of years ago, Doc. I’m familiar with the symptoms,” Jack said.
“You’ve recovered well, Detective Murphy,” Ahmad said. “Let’s hope the same can be said of your friend in there.”
He’s not my friend, and I couldn’t give a shit if he ever recovers. “He’ll be in my prayers,” Jack said.
“The hypothermia is my concern,” Dr. Ahmad said. “He’s going to hurt like stink on a June bug.”
“Is ‘stink on a June bug’ your medical diagnosis, Doc?” Liddell asked.
“It’s something my mother used to say. The nurse is medicating Mr. Crispino now. I don’t expect him to wake again for several hours. Deputy Findlay can call you when he’s awake.”
Liddell said, “That’s okay, Doctor. We’ve got places to go, people to meet. My partner hasn’t shot anyone this week. But I’d like to know more about this hypo-stuff,” Liddell said. “What did you call it?
Dr. Ahmad seemed happy to go off into a medical explanation that would have confused a NASA scientist. While Liddell was distracting Ahmad, Jack made a show of patting his pockets. “Forgot my notebook. Will it be okay if I go grab it? I’ll just be a second.”
“Go ahead,” Ahmad said, and launched back into his description of the diagnosis, symptoms and other shit Jack didn’t need or want to hear.
Deputy Findlay held the door open for Jack and whispered, “Smooth.”
The nurse at the station asked Jack where he thought he was going.
He said, “Forgot my notebook. Dr. Ahmad said it was okay.”
She turned her attention back to the twelve-inch sub that was begging for mercy. Jack hoped she wouldn’t lodge a pepperoncini in her throat and tie him up doing the Subway-Sandwich Maneuver on her. He wasn’t even sure he could get his arms around her.
Jack slipped inside the cubicle and saw Marty was wide awake and glancing at the beeping monitors. “Reminds you of slots in a casino, doesn’t it?” Jack said.
“Yeah, but without all the cigarette smoke and half-naked women plying me with alcohol,” Crispino said. “Knew you’d be back.”
“Did the notebook trick give me away?” Jack asked.
“It was the name you said. I couldn’t talk in front of Deputy Dawg. I don’t know him.”
“I want to know how Missy Schwindel is tied into this. And I want to know why the killer was after Sonny and Judge Knight. Apparently, he’s after you too. What’s his end game? You owe me that much. Remember Cubby?”
Crispino stared into space long enough Jack thought he’d passed out.
Crispino said, “Are you going to tell me I’m not going to make it?” He grimaced.
Jack noticed Crispino’s pulse was low according to the monitors. The pain medicine they’d pushed was probably taking effect.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Marty. Your chances aren’t too good. Just don’t go into the light. Or get in a car with strangers,” Jack said straight-faced, and inched the curtain back to see if he had a few more minutes alone with Crispino. The nurse was done with the sandwich, and was now turning her scowling face toward the cubicle. He’d have to hurry.
“You’re full of shit, Murphy,” Crispino said. “That’s why I like you. And I always pay my debts.” Crispino said. “The girl, Missy. She was a nobody. Little Bobby drugged her in a train station and took her to his apartment. He gets a little rough when he’s drugged up. He calls it rodeo sex. You can imagine what that is.
“She must have come to and threatened to call the cops, or he was just being Little Bobby. He messed her up real good. He called Daddy to get the place cleaned up. Get rid of the girl. You know?”
“Bobby Touhey?” Jack asked.
Crispino said, “Big Bobby and Little Bobby. Little Bobby is his kid. Was his kid. Thank God for small favors.” His voice was getting thick. “Big Bobby’s clean-up crew took care of the body. I only know that she was burned to destroy evidence. Get rid of DNA. And I can tell you that kid spread his DNA like a virus. He would do a snake if he could hold it still.”
“Who got rid of the body?” Jack asked.
“Big Bobby’s guys. Sonny and Sully.”
“Is that why you’re here? Are you one of Big Bobby’s cleaners?”
“I didn’t kill Sonny, if that’s what you’re asking. You can thank someone else for that,” Marty said, his eyes drifting like clouds. “When Little Bobby was killed, Daddy put the squeeze on a boatload of assholes. He wasn’t satisfied with that. He had the idea that it was someone close to the operation—I mean the family. He told me he thought Sonny and Sully had something to do with getting his kid killed. Big Bobby was in a rage. The whole mess opened a bag of worms. Big Bobby should have kept a lid on it, but now he’s afraid the cops will be all over him.”
“You were here to—what?”
“I told you. I didn’t kill Sonny. Me—I don’t think Sonny or Sully had anything to do with Little Bobby’s death. I think the girl who was killed is the reason for all of this. I’m supposed to find the guy that killed Little Bobby and give them a good talking-to,” Crispino said.
“Looks like the killer found you first,” Jack remarked. “Do you know who he is?”
“I was at Sonny’s door. Came up behind me…” His words were slurring.
“Tracker,” Crispino said. His eyelids were drooping, voice fading.
“Tracker? Is that his name? Marty?”
Crispino’s head moved side to side slightly. His voice was a whisper. “Tracker…Jeep…Sully.” He was asleep.
The nurse pulled the curtain open.
“Oh, here it is,” Jack said. He picked up his notebook from the bed and showed her.
Chapter 33
Liddell drove north, across the Twin Bridges, back into Indiana.
&n
bsp; “Tracker, Jeep and Sully? That’s what you got?” Liddell asked. “Couldn’t you shake him awake or slap more out of him? I’m disappointed, pod’na. Or should I start calling you Evansville’s Clint Eastwood?”
“I wish you wouldn’t. I have a hard enough time remembering who I am,” Jack said. “But you can call me Supreme Commander if you want. That computer bitch on my phone does.”
“You should learn to talk to Siri nicely, pod’na.”
“At least we know his real name is Martin Crispino,” Jack said.
Deputy Findlay told them AFIS had come back on Crispino’s fingerprints. He was Martin Crispino, all right. He had one arrest for battery on a policeman.
“Still think he’s a suspect?” Liddell asked.
“I haven’t even eliminated you yet, Bigfoot.”
“Marcie’s my alibi, pod’na.”
“She’s having your baby. She doesn’t count. She needs you to keep working so she can feed a baby Bigfoot.”
“The baby’s going to be a boy. I’ll name him Jack.”
“Yeah, yeah. After Jack Nicholson. I know.”
“We’re naming him after you, pod’na. He’ll be my little pod’na.”
The thought of a baby named after him gave Jack pause. He could feel his eyes getting moist. Now that he was back together with Katie, they had been talking around the edges of another pregnancy. They had lost one child, a girl—full term. The doctor had listened for the baby’s heartbeat for an unusually long time. After that it was a blur of activity. Katie was rushed into the OR. Their daughter was stillborn. They were going to name her Caitlin. He’d not been allowed in the room while the doctors worked furiously to save them, but he was in the hall and saw everything. Jack’s world collapsed and took his marriage with it.
Do we really want to risk it? Caitlin, I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.
“Whatcha thinking, pod’na?”
“I’m thinking I’d be honored. If it’s a girl you can name her Jackie.”
“That’s better than my suggestion. Liddella Marcella.”
Jack chuckled and his bad mood dissipated. “What do they call a female Bigfoot anyway?”
“She’ll be mean. You don’t call her anything.”
They arrived at Sonny’s house and several police units were parked in the driveway and in the frozen yard. A van with the logo “American Lock Service” was just leaving. Sergeant Walker came out and pointed at dark, round spots the size of a dime on the front mat, and a trail of dots leading toward the front drive.
“Blood,” Walker said, and they followed him inside.
“Probably Crispino’s,” Jack said. “He told us he was at the front door when someone coldcocked him. Didn’t see or hear anything. He said the gate was open.”
“It was open when the uniformed officers got here as well,” Walker said.
Jack said, “Crispino’s in ICU at Mercy over in Henderson. He has a gash on the back of his head and was soaking wet, hypothermia. A deputy found him unconscious on the riverbank just across from here. We didn’t know how he got there. Maybe we do now.”
“You think he was thrown in?” Walker asked. “Even if he tried to swim across that’s a long way in that cold water.”
“He was fully clothed—gun missing—and soaked to the skin. Sonny’s property meets the river,” Jack said.
“Can you call Mercy and see if they’ll collect a blood sample for me?” Walker asked. “I’ll compare it with this blood.”
“I’ll call Deputy Findlay. He can get it,” Jack said.
They carefully stepped over the blood trail and went inside. Walker shut the door behind them and in spite of his heavy jacket he was shivering. “I got here twenty minutes ago. No one was home. I called a locksmith. It’s colder than a witch’s kitty out there.” Tony Walker never cursed. Well, almost never. He handed Jack the signed search warrant and Jack skimmed through it. It gave them permission to search the house, garage, vehicles, outbuildings, and anywhere that a poisonous substance could be found. The trail of blood was in plain view and led toward the river. They didn’t need a search warrant to follow it to the river.
“Mindy’s car is in the garage. There’s a Harley in there with no license plates.”
As Walker said this, one of his techs called from another room, “Sergeant Walker, you might want to see this.”
Jack and Liddell followed Walker into the master bedroom. Women’s clothes were carelessly cast on the floor, bed, chair and dresser top. The tech was holding open the door to a closet.
Walker let out a whistle. “Well, will ya lookie here?”
Jack and Liddell did. It was a spacious walk-in closet with racks of clothes and dressers on both sides. At the back was a ceiling-to-floor, wall-to-wall shelf of shoes. The shelf was swung away from the wall to reveal a tall safe. The safe door was open. Inside were several handguns, jewelry, and folders of paperwork.
“There’s enough jewelry here to open a store. The guns are collector’s items,” Liddell said.
“No bottle with a skull and crossbones on the label?” Jack asked.
“We should be so lucky,” Walker answered.
Jack knew they could photograph the safe and contents and document it, but their search warrant was for poison or anything related to poison. Not for guns. Not for jewelry. Not even the papers. These things may well have a bearing on their case, but at this point Jack couldn’t think of any direct connection, hence a reason to seize them. Maybe Sonny was laundering his stolen drug money by purchasing jewelry and guns. Jack would need to apply for another warrant before seizing those items or the papers. That didn’t mean they couldn’t take pictures to prove they hadn’t taken anything.
Jack and Liddell waited in the living room while Walker and the tech went back to their tasks. Walker was calling the prosecutor’s office to start the search warrant for the contents of the safe.
“I’ve never seen this kind of stuff around your place,” Liddell said. “You’ve got to be worth more than Sonny stole.” He was referring to Jack’s half-ownership of Two Jakes Restaurant and Marina. Jack’s dad, Jake Murphy, was a street cop for thirty-five years. Jake’s partner was Jake Brady. The two Jakes retired and bought several acres of Ohio riverfront that was little better than swampland. The two Jakes built a restaurant on an old docked barge, and little by little added on to their empire. When Jake Murphy died, he bequeathed his half of the business to Jack, knowing his other son, Kevin, would have nothing to do with it. Kevin was a scientist-type whose ambition was to travel the world and save zooplankton. Jack would always be a cop. When Jack was born, the doctor slapped his tiny bottom and Jack slapped handcuffs on the doctor.
“We’re wasting our time here, Bigfoot. Even if they find the poison, I don’t think there’s anything here that will help us catch this guy. Even if Mindy was trying to kill Sonny, I don’t think she would have the strength to hang his body like that.”
Jack stopped Walker in the front foyer. “Tony, I think you can handle this. If you find something…”
“I’ll let you know,” Walker said. “By the way, we did find a mason jar on the kitchen counter half full of dried flower petals. The label on the jar said it’s Cherry Blossom Tea. I’ll collect some of the blossoms from the trees in the yard just in case.”
“I guess we found our source,” Jack said. “We have to find Mindy and see how much of this stuff she was feeding Sonny. If she was drinking it too, she needs to be seen by a doctor.”
“I don’t think anyone’s planning on coming back here,” Walker said.
“Maybe Sully got Crispino? It had to have happened before Sgt. Mattingly’s guys got here. They’ve been out there watching the house for hours, pod’na.”
Walker said, “Give me the deputy’s number and I’ll call. I can send someone to Mercy to pick up the blood sample. Oh, I forgot to tel
l you. Captain Franklin called. Crispino rented a white 2016 Jeep Cherokee at the airport Budget Rental. Captain Franklin added it to your BOLO and called the deputy in Henderson.”
Jack thanked Walker and he and Liddell walked to their car. Liddell drove over the lawn to get around the police units. Jack rubbed his hands together in front of the heat vent. “Tracker, Jeep, Sully,” he said. “He was referring to his Jeep? Maybe he put a tracker on Sully’s car?”
“Is there any way to track a tracker?” Liddell asked.
Jack took out his iPhone and said, “Siri, find a Radio Shack near me.”
Siri responded, “I’m sorry, Supreme Commander. I don’t understand that command.”
Jack gripped the phone. “You bitch!”
Liddell took the phone from Jack and said, “Radio Shack.” Siri came back with a local Radio Shack. Liddell told Siri to call the number. Siri did. He handed the phone back to Jack while it was ringing.
“You have to talk nice to her, pod’na. You sound grumpy all the time.”
“I do not,” Jack said. The call was answered. Jack identified himself. The clerk sounded like he was twelve years old but he knew fluent GPS.
Jack finished the call and said, “This kid said we couldn’t find a tracker because it has to be paired with another device. Uncle Marty must have put one on Sully’s vehicle. If Sully caught him skulking around here, that would explain some things. Sully’s suddenly much more interesting.”
“We wait for Marty’s Jeep to be found,” Liddell said.
“Pretty much. Let’s go back to headquarters.”
“Hi-Yo, Silver, away!” Liddell said. “Don’t you watch television? Me Tonto? You Lone Ranger?”
“Me Jack. You crazy.”
Chapter 34
Zackariah Pugh was sheltered in the doorway of the old Sam’s Market on Columbia Street. Down the block was St. Anthony’s Church. The church and rectory were still used by the parish, but the school had been turned into a homeless shelter. Zack spent many a night at St. Anthony’s Shelter when it was bitter cold like the last few days. He’d told Dayton he was still sharing an apartment with his dad. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth, tell her that he hadn’t seen his dear old dad for over a year. Not conscious.
